The Legend of the Seasons: Winter

Once, a very long time ago, when humanity could speak with earth and understand the strange language of the trees, the world was free and glorious. Even the seasons were not confined to the invisibility of the skies, but walked among mankind, conversing easily with any they came across. Of all the seasons, Winter was by far the loneliest. She often tread barefoot along the forest paths, a thin cape draped and clinging to her skin. Where she walked, snow flurries drifted from her, rolling off her shoulders, and ice spread in cracked glass spider-webs over the dirt. A crown of snowbells woven by the hands of a child circled her forehead, a considerable contrast to her skin and hair. Few people ever walked with the Winter, leaving her to discover the world on her own. loneliness was a companion, but she grew accustomed to the shadow, and learned to enjoy its presence. The quiet opened her ears to the whispers in the trees and the rumblings of the earth. Some days were spent sitting to watch the sun walk across the sky, kissing the treetops in the morning and the evening. She avoided towns and searched out the wide open spaces of the North, contenting herself to watch humanity from afar, save for the few moons each year when the others gave up their domains to her icy touch. And so in the North she resides, observing the planet and watching it grow, in a glacial convent of population one.